The Green-Room

Since the last issue, Edwin A. Alderman, founder of the Virginia Quarterly Review, has died. For ten years, as President of the University of Virginia, Dr. Alderman had dreamed of the establishment of an organ of liberal opinion at the University. In 1924 a group of friends of the University responded to his appeal by underwriting for its initial years the Virginia Quarterly Review. Dr. Alderman chose its first editor, contributed to its first issue, and served until his death on its editorial board. While his duties as college president left no leisure for active participation in the magazine’s affairs, he was always ready with his interest and his counsel.

It was his fulfilled hope that the Quarterly, intimately associated with the University of Virginia, should achieve an independent position of its own; and it was with justifiable pride that he watched its growth from a young and unknown publication to a liberal periodical of international reputation.

This is no place to detail Dr. Alderman’s varied career. But the present editorial board may be permitted here to record the vision of a founder, the comradely aid of an associate, and to lament his passing.

In “Europe Faces the Customs Union” Robkkt C. Bink-ley, professor of history in Western Reserve University, discusses the project which Austria and Germany announced on March 21 to a startled world. Professor Bink-ley is joint author of “The New Governments of Central Europe” and has written upon various aspects of contemporary politics and economics.

Like Mr. Bixkley, Edna Kenton is a newcomer to the pages of the Virginia Quarterly. The author of “The Case of the American Woman” is—an American woman. A native of Missouri, now living in New York, she has contributed articles and short stories to various magazines.

Silas Bent, the author of “Reconstruction—New Style,” is a Kentuckian living in Connecticut. After many years with newspapers and magazines, he is now a free-lance journalist. He is at present at work on a biography of Mr. Justice Holmes, to be published by the Vanguard Press. This is his first appearance in the Virginia Quarterly.

Waldo Frank writes of his portrayal of San Martin and Bolivar: “I have built up the conversation between the two Generals (of which there is of course no direct record) from letters and statements by them both. In many cases exact quotations are used.” The article grew out of researches Mu. Frank has been making for a book, announced by Scribner’s for fall publication, “America Hispafla.” Mr. Frank has contributed before to the Virginia Quarterly.

The flavor of Elmira Grogan’s story, “Once Again,” will be recognized by readers of “The Flatwoods,” published in the April, 1929, Quarterly. Miss Grogan is a native of the Georgia she portrays.

Conrad Aiken, though a new contributor, will not need an introduction to poetry lovers. A native of Savannah, he lives now in England. He has published volumes of poetry since 1914, as well as short stories and novels. Frederic Prokosch, whose poems have often appeared in the Quarterly, is a Pennsylvanian. Geoffrey Johnson is an English poet, whose work is also familiar to our readers.

Claudius Murchison, of the department of economics and commerce in the University of North Carolina, is the author of “King Cotton is Sick,” published by the Virginia Quarterly in January, 1930, as well as of a later volume by the same title. His judgment of “Captains of Southern Industry” is based not only, on an intimate knowledge of the Southern textile field but also—what was hardly less necessary to his analysis—a thorough familiarity with the textile industry in New England.

The author of “Picasso and Others,” Samuel M. Koorz, is a collector and student of modern painting, who recently published “Modern American Painters” (Brewer and Warren).

“The Everlasting Captain” is another New England sketch from the pen of Robert P. Tristram Coffin. Mr. Coffin recently published “The Dukes of Buckingham: Playboys of the Stuart World” (Brentano’s).

Morley Roberts, novelist and critic, is the biographer of W. H. Hudson, and knew intimately both Hudson and Gissing. Last October he contributed a paper on Hudson to the Virginia Quarterly. In “The Letters of George Gissing” he draws mie conclusions from some yet imp’ lished letters written by Gissing to Roberts himself.

Howard Mumford Jones, author of “America and French Culture” and other works, was born in Michigan and is therefore a native of “Mr. Lewis’s America.” Donald Davidson, poet and critic, is a professor of English at Vanderbilt University. He is one of the “Twelve Southerners” who contributed to the symposium, “I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition.” William E, Dodd, professor of history in the University of Chicago, has known personally many of the actors in “The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens,” including the author. Emily Clark’s latest book is “Innocence Abroad” (Knopf), describing her adventures as editor of The Reviewer. Scott Buchanan is the author of several philosophical works. He is at present professor of philosophy in the University of Virginia. Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr., is the author of “Traditional Ballads of Virginia” (Harvard Press). Harry B. Weiile, Associate Curator of Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, is the author of “American Miniatures, 1780 to 1850.” Broadus Mitchell is professor of economics at the Johns Hopkins. His latest volume, done in collaboration with George Sinclair Mitchell, is “The Industrial Revolution in the South” (Johns Hopkins Press). eugene M. Kayden, professor of economics in the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, was born in Russia and came to America as a child. He is the author of “The Cooperative Movement in Russia during the War.” Carroll Mason Sparrow is a physicist and one of the associate editors of the Virginia Quarterly.

The Virginia Quarterly Review is published at the University of Virginia: in April, July, October, and January. Subscription rates: $3.00 the year. Canadian, $3.25; Foreign, $3.50. Single copies, 75 cents.

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